Well-off Labour peer is a social housing tenant

The Labour peer at the centre of the latest parliamentary allowances row is a social housing tenant who appears to have benefited from a second taxpayer subsidy on her London home.

Baroness Uddin already faces accusations of profiteering after reports she claimed £100,000 in Lords allowances by designating an empty flat in Maidstone as her main residence.

Five neighbours said that bedrooms in the property were unfurnished and they had never seen anyone there.

Today it emerged that Lady Uddin's genuine main home, where she lives and is registered to vote, is a housing association property - the modern equivalent of a council house.

Peter Golds, the Tory opposition leader in Tower Hamlets where the baroness lives, described the revelation as "extraordinary", saying: "This borough has some of the most desperate housing need in Britain.

"I think the 20,000 people on the council's waiting list would be interested to know what a prosperous Labour peer who can afford a property in Kent is doing in social housing."

Baroness Uddin's three-bedroom house, built in the early Nineties, is in a quiet street in Wapping. A plaque on the side of a neighbouring property makes clear that both it and Lady Uddin's house belong to Spitalfields Housing Association.

The association received a public subsidy of £37.8million last year. The average rent for its properties is £104 a week, a sixth of the market rate.

However, even without her allowances from the Lords, Baroness Uddin, 49, is well above the income bracket to qualify for social housing. She has held a number of highly-remunerated directorships at major companies, including former ITV giant Carlton Television, and was a senior employee and parliamentary consultant for the Excelcare nursing home group.

Before that, she worked for many years as a senior social services manager in the borough of Newham. She currently holds two paid jobs, with the Home Office and the philanthropic wing of the Zurich insurance giant.

Because she claims her main residence is outside London, Lady Uddin is also entitled to collect up to £174 every day she attends the Lords for the cost of accommodation in the capital. The amount is paid to peers without the need to produce receipts and many claim the maximum every day they attend.

Baroness Uddin claimed a total of £29,675 for accommodation in 2007/8, a time when the maximum daily accommodation claim was £165 a day. Her bill represents a claim at the maximum possible rate for 179 days, more days than the Lords actually sat that year.

It is not clear what rent Baroness Uddin pays on her Wapping property. It is possible that she pays a full market rent to the housing association but since the Lords requires no receipts it is also possible that she pays, or has paid, the normal subsidised rent and still claims the full £174 daily allowance.

"Whatever rent Lady Uddin pays, she is depriving a low-income family of a home which was built for the needy at public expense," said Mr Golds. "She has a great deal of explaining to do."

Baroness Uddin, who faces calls for a police inquiry into her expenses claims, failed to return phone calls asking about her rent from the Standard yesterday. When we called at the Wapping house last night a man, believed to be her husband, refused to answer questions or comment.

On Friday, in response to the original story, Baroness Uddin issued a statement through solicitors saying: "The Wapping house is rented, while I own the property in Maidstone.

"I do not believe that I have done anything wrong or breached any House of Lords rules. Should the relevant House of Lords authorities wish to investigate the matter I will, of course, co-operate fully."